'

While Fleur yet stood thus rapt in melancholy meditation, his host came
up and thus accosted him: 'Friend! why stand you thus looking so
ill-pleased? if any thing be amiss in your food and lodging, tell me and
it shall be mended.'

'Sir,' replied Fleur, 'all in your house is so well appointed that my
whole life were scarce long enough to give you thanks equal to the
service I have received; but, from fear of failing in the business that
calls me here, I am sorely troubled and distressed.'

'Let us first to dinner, and after that we will talk your matter over,'
said the host.

So the two went home and sate them down to table; but Fleur, marking
that his servant had served him with the cup that was Blanchefleur's
price, was so pierced to the heart with sorrow at the sight that the
tears streamed from his eyes, and Lycoris, the hostess, in pity for his
pain, said to her husband Daries, 'Quick, sir! let us clear the table,
for this young man seeks other support than food.'

[Illustration]

So, when the table was cleared, Daries desired his guest to declare his
grief, if so be that help for it might be found in counsel. But said
Lycoris again: 'Sir, so far as I can judge by his mien and bearing, I
deem that this youth grieves for the maiden Blanchefleur, who, now shut
up in the Admiral's high tower, spent two weeks with us in grievous
sorrow of heart, bewailing her sad fate in being thus sold away far from
the youth she loved, and for whose sake she shed many a tear and heaved
many a sigh; and, as you may remember, sir, on leaving us this
Blanchefleur was bought by the Admiral for ten times her weight in gold.
Now, to my thinking, this youth is brother or lover to the maiden
Blanchefleur.'

'No brother but her lover am I!' cried Fleur in glad surprise; then
bethinking him how by such heedless speech his life was put in peril,
he cried again: 'No! no! I don't mean that; I am brother and not lover
to Blanchefleur. We are children of the same parents.'

'With all respect for your word, young sir, you contradict yourself in
one breath,' said Daries the host. 'Best speak the truth out plainly as,
forsooth, I now do in declaring that it were madness to come in quest of
the maiden Blanchefleur; for, if the Admiral but hears of you, you are a
dead man.'

[Illustration]

'Sir,' said Fleur, 'hear the whole truth--I am son to the King of Spain,
and seek my stolen Blanchefleur, without whom I cannot live; help me to
her